About

Pseudopod: Year 10

$33,677

pledged of $30,645 goal

495

backers

Pseudopod, the world's longest running free short horror fiction podcast, is celebrating its 10th Halloween and wants to raise funds to pay their narrators. Rewards include an eBook anthology and tiki mug designed especially for us by Horror in Clay.

What horror lurks at Pseudopod

Are you new to Pseudopod? Don’t let our decade of content daunt you. We’ve assembled a list of thirteen stories that show the strength and diversity of our offerings. We’re certain that this list will provide something that will tickle the pineal gland of every horror fan.

Escape Artists is the umbrella organization that includes four weekly speculative fiction podcasts. PseudoPod produces horror, PodCastle produces fantasy, EscapePod produces science fiction, and Cast of Wonders produces young adult speculative fiction. We typically produce single-narrator readings with minimal production (no dramatic adaptations, little to no radio theater). Escape Artists has a combined unique download rate of well over a quarter million per month. We distribute under a creative commons attribution non-commercial no derivatives license. We run a mixture of new and classic fiction.

The storied past of Pseudopod

2016 marks Pseudopod’s 10th Halloween. Just about this time in 2013, we were weeks from shutting our doors and turning the lights off. Thanks to contributors like you, we were able to not only survive, but thrive. While we have always paid our authors, last year we raised our pay for full-length original fiction to professional rates. This year we adjusted this policy to cover all original fiction. That makes us one of two regular fiction markets that exclusively runs short horror while paying SFWA professional rates, and original sales also count towards membership requirements for the HWA. Now we’re asking the listeners to help chip in so we can compensate all of our content creators.

Since the primary mission at Pseudopod.org is the promotion and preservation of the short horror fiction format, we want to assemble a companion anthology to celebrate what we’ve done over the last decade. This includes reprints of stories we’ve run as episodes of Pseudopod, as well as some original fiction from authors we’ve run a number of times. We are also working with the fine folks at Horror in Clay to produce a tiki mug that celebrates a decade with Pseudopod.

The Anthology: For Mortal Things Unsung

This anthology is not just "A Decade of Pseudopod." In addition to reprints both familiar and new to the Pseudopod audience, the anthology will include brand new stories from Orrin Grey, Damien Angelica Walters, and A.C. Wise. We have a new Coyote Tale from Jim Bihyeh, a Tale from the White Street Society by Grady Hendrix, and a Tale of the Guru Keresh by Tim W. Burke. Editor Alex Hofelich has woven a thread of Pacific Ocean resonance throughout the anthology, to go along with our exquisite tiki mug.

Check out the full table of contents. Cover art will be provided by Hugo Award winning artist Elizabeth Leggett. Teases and reveals to come soon as updates to project backers.

The Mug: Pseudopod Tower

The Pseudopod Tower 10th Anniversary Mug is a 9-inch tiki totem. The production edition funded by this Kickstarter campaign will be around 16-ounces, and will come in a gruesome glaze—purple as the bruises of love. No more than 1,000 will be produced of this 10th Anniversary edition mug.

Initial Concept Sketches

We'll let Jonathan M. Chaffin of Horror in Clay tell you more about the mug in his own words. Not-so-coincidentally, Jonathan also designed our very first logo and t-shirts:

"The Pseudopod Tower tiki mug (as even I've started calling it) was originally called "The Eye of Kanaloa." (It was only called that in my head, and it didn't catch on.) The front depicts a Kanaloa totem, rare for a tiki mug. In the mythology of the old Hawaiian gods, Kanaloa is symbolized by the squid or by the octopus. He exists in complement to Kane, the god of creation, and guides the way to hidden springs . . . which I thought was appropriately symbolic for the dark places horror writers mine for inspiration. Unique among representations of the old god, statues of Kanaloa have round eyes. According to Kauai tradition, if you could look into the eye of Kanaloa, you would see a mystic pattern and be healed. Peering deep into the eye of OUR Kanaloa may turn out differently . . . there appears to be a fanged, tentacled and clawed beastie inside. Use your own best judgment.

The microphone is a Shure 55 vintage mic similar to the one I used to borrow for narrating.

The obverse of the mug shows one incarnation of Pseudopod Tower—from noxious catacombs beneath to soaring spires and roofs above; existing both in and between worlds. The Tower is composed of as many categories of horror as I could cram together. This mug is one of the truest examples I have ever created of the architectural confusion of pop culture references that is my brain. It is jammed with allusions and homages to horror, tiki, radio, and eldritch lore. Deep in the bowels of Pseudopod Tower, we see the ghastly-organic engines and servers (and beasties) tended by one of our dedicated Slush-masters. What horrors will be brought forth next?"

Limited edition mugs available at the higher donor levels (We have included a limited run of 10 - one for each decade) will be the same size, but will be hand glazed in a multi-step, multi-tone process. All mugs will be high-fired ceramic, food- and alcohol-safe, and ready for you to carry through the darkest dreamscapes and murkiest dungeons.

The mug has already been designed, modeled, sculpted, and molded. We just need to know how many to make. The master sculpt is already completed, and we have designed most of the other rewards.

After funding is successful, we will place the final order for the mugs. Time from signing the paperwork to having the mugs in hand should be around 150 days, so we should begin shipping these out in May.

Enhanced Patronage

We have added a few reward levels for those of you who would like to enhance your patronage.

Matross' Lesser Sponsor

Want to be specifically thanked in an episode endcap? Or you want someone else to be thanked in your place? We can do that, and we're ready to thank one person every week for a year.

Matross' Sponsor and Matross' Greater Sponsor

Want to include a special message before or after an episode? Birthday or anniversary wish to that special horror fan in your life? Pick the closing quote? Want to get Alasdair to recite horror limericks in his Manx accent? We can do that, too, and we're ready to have one of each every month for a year. The Greater Sponsor can place the message before the story and the regular can place it after.

Matross' Patron

Loved a story we ran way back when, but you want to take advantage of advances in audio or the narration didn't quite work for you? Thought we completely missed the point and want to redirect the story endcaps? Now that we'll be paying narrators, we'd love to work with you and re-record some of these episodes and then re-release them into our podcast feed. You select an episode and we'll work with you to acquire reprint rights and secure a new narrator. Your contribution will cover a reprint fee for the author, the narrator fee, and audio production.

For Book Lovers

We have partnered with several of our authors and friends in publishing to bring you bundles of great books you're bound to love.

Plus the eBook of For Mortal Things Unsung and a 10th Anniversary Pseudopod Mug

The Book of Starry Wisdom compiles newly edited editions of H.P. Lovecraft’s public domain cycle of Cthulhu stories, edited and produced by Simon Berman and illustrated by renowned deific and fantasy artist, Valerie Herron (The Book of the Great Queen). Accompanied by essays and musings by some of today’s premiere Lovecraftian scholars, writers, and devotees, this is a luxurious, approximately 200 page hardback tome, featuring a leather textured cover with gold foil pressed symbols of significance to the Cult of Cthulhu, and 13 interior B&W illustrations.

Never Bet the Devil and Other Warnings by Orrin Grey is a premium edition of a modern horror classic. First published in 2012 by Evil Eye Press, this collection put Orrin Grey on the map as an up and coming horror author of note. This new edition includes all ten stories from the original, as well as the heretofore hard-to-find "A Night for Mothing" and an all new story, "Goblins." This will be approximately 220 pages illustrated by M.S. Corley and features a beautiful 6 x 9" clothbound, foil-stamped cover, and a foreword by author Nathan Ballingrud.

Plus the eBook of For Mortal Things Unsung and a 10th Anniversary Pseudopod Mug

No matter where he draws inspiration from, whether the weird tales of Lovecraft, Machen, and Poe or the films of Murnau, Corman, and Argento, the end result is inevitably fresh and new. And wonderfully monstrous.
If you love monsters—the macabre, the murderous, the misunderstood; the strange, the sinister, the sympathetic; the cinematic and the literary—you will find plenty to love in Orrin Grey’s Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts.

Monsters from the Vault disinters a bunch of classic (or not-so-classic) vintage horror films for your delectation. Revisiting films from the earliest of the talkies (shot in two-strip Technicolor!) to Bert I. Gordon’s 1976 “masterpiece” The Food of the Gods, this volume collects more than four years of Grey’s popular Vault of Secrets column on vintage horror cinema, featuring everything from mad scientists to mole people, giant bugs to devil dolls, and more. Thrills, chills, and, of course, plenty of monsters await you within these pages. So dim the lights, grab some popcorn, and get ready for our feature presentation

Plus the eBook of For Mortal Things Unsung and a 10th Anniversary Pseudopod Mug

Grady Hendrix writes fiction, also called "lies," and he writes non-fiction, which people sometimes accidentally pay him for. He is the author of Horrorstör, the only novel about a haunted Scandinavian furniture store you'll ever need. It has been translated into 14 languages and is being turned into a television show by Gail Berman (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and Josh Schwartz (Gossip Girl). They have never met Grady, but that is their loss. His new novel is called My Best Friend's Exorcism, about demonic possession, friendship, exorcism, and the Eighties.

This bundle from the author of the Tales of the White Street Society includes a personalized and signed copy of My Best Friend's Exorcism plus rainbow unicorn stickers and a very special anti-Dungeons and Dragons comic book from the Eighties.

Plus the eBook of For Mortal Things Unsung and a 10th Anniversary Pseudopod Mug

Alasdair Stuart, one of the UK’s most knowledgeable and passionate genre journalists has finally decided to do a sequel to his first volume of Pseudopod Tapes. In the Pseudopod Tapes, Alasdair gathers a years worth of outro’s from one of the world's leading horror podcasts and collects them all together for you in this volume. Stuart hosts Pseudopod with a sharp wit, clear insight, tremendous honesty and warm humour. It translates extremely well to the page. ‘Alasdair Stuart, host of the must-listen Pseudopod just became a must-read!’ -Steven Savile

Coming Soon!

Over the course of the campaign, we’ll be releasing updates showing the anthology cover art. We’ll release the full Table of Contents. We'll include teasers from some of the new stories. We’ll release essays from our family and friends, about what Pseudopod and audio horror fiction has meant to them.

Also, we have a pile of stretch goals waiting in the wings. Coasters! Bookmarks! T-Shirts! Print editions of the book! Additional payments to the authors of the anthology! More years of narrator pay!

And who knows what else may wash up on shore in the next 30 days...

Our tentative timeline:

November 22 - Kickstarter Closes

December 9 - Funding clears, all collateral ordered, prototype sent for production run molding

March 15, 2017 (estimated) - production completed, mugs in transit

May 2017 (estimated) - mugs in-hand in Atlanta, ready to be shipped

The Pseudopod Tower 10th Anniversary Mug was conceived and sketched by Jonathan M. Chaffin, an Atlanta-based graphic designer. After successfully launching five other tiki mug crowdfunding campaigns and fulfilling all of their obligations, Jonathan and his wife Allison launched and maintain www.HorrorInClay.com and www.MugCrate.com, a quarterly tiki mug and Polynesian Pop subscription box.

Risks and challenges

• We reserve the right to refuse to run any message (Matross' Sponsors) or re-record any episode (Matross' Patron). In this case we will offer the backer the option of providing an alternate at least once. We're willing to work with you, but we're also protective of our brand.

• An author may not respond affirmatively to our request to reprint a story (Matross' Patron).

• Lead time could go long due to monstrous intervention (Kaiju rising from the ocean, etc); however, we are being advised by Horror in Clay (who has successfully funded five crowdfunded campaigns before and has been consistently asked to speak on crowdfunding panels at conventions) and we will provide constant updates.

• What about shipping? We go overboard with shipping: lots of peanuts and a large box. As mug collectors, we’ve suffered the agony of unwrapping a shoebox full of dust from a long-anticipated mug—we do not want that to happen to you. Alasdair has received three mugs successfully shipped from Atlanta to the UK.

• Will my mug look just like the one in the picture? The wiped-off glaze will vary slightly for each mug. The pictures above show generally what the glaze effect will look like: washed purple in the lower areas, bone/natural in the high places. As the limited edition mugs are completed, we will post pictures.

• In order of percentage, funds will be used for:

Mold, glaze, production fees for production run of mugs

Shipping, postage, and packing materials

Paying the authors, cover artist, and copyeditor who contributed to the anthology

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 42 or more
About US$ 42

Palmer's eBooklover

Just want eBooks? Here's a level with eBooks of Pseudopod Tapes Volumes 1 & 2, The Long List Anthology 1 & 2, and For Mortal Things Unsung. All should be available in December 2016 with Tapes 2 to be sent when it is available.

Plus gentle digital hugs from the tentacles of Pseudopod by listing You on the website.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $275 or more
About $275

Matross' Patron

Re-record an old episode (of your choice) to be released as a bonus in our podcast feed. Pay the author reprint fee and the narrator fee. We will record new endcaps. Twelve available (one for each month of the year). We'll give you special credit in the re-released episode and include a mutually agreed upon brief message after the story.